'Sustainable' urban planning, policy and design professes to solve sustainability problems, but often depletes and degrades ever more resources and ecosystems and concentrates wealth and concretize social disparities. Positive Development theory holds that development could create more net ecological and social gains than no construction at all. It explains how existing conceptual, physical and institutional structures are inherently biased against the preservation and expansion of social and natural life-support systems, and proposes explicit reforms to planning, design and decision making that would enable development to increase future options and social and natural life-support systems - in absolute terms.
Net-Positive Design and Sustainable Urban Development is aimed at students, academics, professionals and sustainability advocates who wonder why existing approaches have been ineffective. It explains how to reform the anti-ecological biases in our current frameworks of environmental governance, planning, decision making and design - and suggests how to make these changes. Cities can increase both the 'public estate' (reduce social stratification, inequity and other causes of conflict, increase environmental quality, wellbeing and access to basic needs, etc.); and the 'ecological base' (sequester more carbon and produce more energy than used during construction and operation, increase ecological space to support ecological carrying capacity, ecosystem functions and services, restore the bioregions and wilderness, etc.). No small task, this new book provides academic theory and professional tools for saving the planet.
Author(s): Janis Birkeland
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: xxii+386
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Boxes
Preface
Overview
PART I: Design and Analysis: Synopsis of Part I
SECTION A: Introduction to Positive Development
1. Overview of Net-Positive Development
1.1 Introduction
1.2 Definitions and Basic Concepts in Positive Development (PD)
1.3 The Critique of the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) in PD
1.4 Introduction to Some Basic Design Strategies
1.5 Institutional Reform
1.6 Conclusion
1.7 Exercises
Notes
2. Centrality of the Built Environment in Sustainability
2.1. Review and Preview
2.2. Potentially Positive Built-Environment Impacts
2.3 Future Trends
2.4. Conclusion
2.5 Exercises
Notes
SECTION B: Sustainability Revisited
3. Sustainability Paradigms in Historical Context
3.1 Review and Preview
3.2 Misconceptions about Sustainability
3.3 An Overview of the Dominant Paradigm (DP)
3.4 Historical Strands in the Sustainability Movement
3.5 Three Streams within Circular Approaches
3.6 Open- and Closed-Systems Distinction
3.7 Hard and Soft Streams in Sustainable Design
3.8 Sustainable Design at Different Scales
3.9 Conclusion
3.10 Exercises
Notes
4. Sustainability and Positive Development Theory
4.1 Review and Preview
4.2 Limits to Growth and the 1972 UN Stockholm Conference
4.3 Limits to Resources and the 1969 NEPA Legislation
4.4 Boundaries and the 1980 World Conservation Strategy
4.5 Balance and the 1987 World Council for Environment and Development
4.6 Government Declarations and Policies ConcerningUrban Development
4.7 Three Differing Models of Sustainability
4.8 Positive Development Theory in Shorthand
4.9 Conclusion
4.10 Exercises
Notes
SECTION C: Built Environment Solutions
5. Eco-Positive Retrofitting
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Alternative to Green Growth
5.3 Shared Problems of Competing Growth Models
5.4 Retrofitting
5.5 Eco-Positive Retrofitting
5.6 Implementing Retrofitting
5.7 Sample Eco-positive Retrofitting Design Concepts
5.8 Conclusion
5.9 Exercises
Notes
6. Design for Nature Exemplified
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Green Scaffolding (GS) Functions
6.3 GS Applications in Cities
6.4 GS Applications at Urban/Regional Scales
6.5 Green Scaffolding (GS) and Eco-Services
6.6 Incentivizing GS and Design for Eco-Services
6.7 Sample Incentives
6.8 Conclusion
6.9 Exercises
Notes
SECTION D: Systems Mapping Themes (SMT) Analyses
7. SMT Analyses for Physical Design
7.1 Review and Preview
7.2 Review of the SMARTmode Planning Process
7.3 Overview of SMT Analyses
7.4 Code to the SMT Diagrams
7.5 Design Issues at Building or Project Scale
7.6 Urban Planning Issues at Municipal or Regional Scale
7.7 Exercises
Notes
8. SMT Analyses for Institutional Design
8.3 Exercises
Notes
PART II: Decision Making and Assessment: Synopsis of Part II
SECTION E: Development Governance
9. Governance and Futures Planning
9.1 Review and Preview
9.2 Design as aDriver of Systems Change
9.3 Eco-governance
9.4 Planning as Governance
9.5 Sustainable (Futures) Planning
9.6 Digital Cities
9.7 Conclusion
9.8 Exercises
Notes
10. Development Control and Assessment
10.1 Review and Preview
10.2 Development Control
10.3 Community Participation
10.4 Introduction to Green Building Rating/Marketing Tools (RTs)
10.5 Overview of Issues and Omissions in RTs
10.6 Comparison of RTs to Other Quality Controls
10.7 Conclusion
10.8 Exercises
Notes
SECTION F: Rating Tools Critiqued
11. Rating Tools and Procedures
11.1 Review and Preview
11.2 Applies to Total Construction Impacts or Just Certain Types of Projects?
11.3 Introduces a
Culture of Science or Sets Rules?
11.4 Examines Basic Alternatives or Simply Compares Design Elements?
11.5 Promotes Capacity Building or Outsources to Private Consultants?
11.6 Increases Community Engagement or Creates an Expertariat?
11.7 Enables the Prevention of Harmful Projects or Legitimizes Them?
11.8 Requires Public Transparent Findings or Simply Makes Judgments?
11.9 Allows As-of-Right Approvals or Fosters Improvements?
11.10 Requires Adaptability to Be Designed in or Relies on Durability?
11.11 Considers Lost Eco-productivity or Ignores Opportunity Costs?
11.12 Effectively Devalues the Future or Considers Resource Scarcity?
Notes
12. Rating Tools and Substance
12.1 Requires Public Purposes or Just Client Benefits?
12.2 Treats Buildings as Parts of Open or Nested Urban Systems?
12.3 Allows for Automatic Approvals or Judicious Decisions?
12.4 Uses Design as Conflict Resolution or Simply Chooses Winners?
12.5 Includes Elements of Time and Space or Just Material Efficiency?
12.6 Considers Cumulative, Regional Impacts or Just Onsite Impacts?
12.7 Considers Public Interests or Just Stakeholder Interests?
12.8 Considers Ethical and Social Issues or Just Economic Gains?
12.9 Considers Whole-System Gains or Relies on System Boundaries?
12.10 Addresses Resource Scarcity and Extinctions or Just Relative Consumption?
12.11 Prioritizes Highest Sustainable Land Use or Highest Economic Use?
12.12 Transferability of RTs to Disadvantaged Regions
12.13 Conclusion
12.14 Exercises
Notes
SECTION G: Eco-Positive Design Review (A Qualitative Tool)
13. Eco-positive Design Review (Social Issues)
13.1 Review and Preview
13.2 Basic Criteria for an eDR
13.3 Health, Safety and Security
13.4 Sustainability Education and Social Change
13.5 Social Needs (Vvalues, Justice, Fairness, Etc.)
13.6 Space for Changing Needs
13.7 Economic Equity, Opportunity or Affordability
13.8 Safer and Healthier Jobs
Notes
14. The Eco-Positive Design Review (Ecological issues)
14.1 Restore and Increase Natural Systems and Eco-services
14.2 Create Eco-positive Onsite and Offsite Impacts
14.3 Reduce Waste and Total Material Flows
14.4 Eliminate Fossil Fuels and Sequester Carbon
14.5 Increase Ecological and Human Health
14.6 Recognize Complex and Interdependent Open Systems
14.7 Conclusion
14.8 Exercises
Notes
SECTION H: STARfish (A Quantitative Tool)
15. The STARfish Tool Described
15.1 Review and Preview
15.2 How Impact Categories Overlap
15.3 Description of the STARfish
15.4 Summary of STARfish Benefits
15.5 Exercises
Notes
16. The STARfish Tool Benchmarks
16.1 Review and Preview
16.2 Ecology/Biodiversity STARfish
16.3 Materials/Waste STARfish
16.4 Efficiency/Energy STARfish
16.5 Greenhouse/Carbon (Sequestration) STARfish
16.6 The Health/Life Quality STARfish
16.7 Planning/Spatial Relationships STARfish
16.8 Conclusion
16.9 Exercises
Notes
Index
